


But I'm Wearing You Down

by sarcat



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcat/pseuds/sarcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five times Wally and Artemis manage to find their way back to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I'm Wearing You Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitty-cat-angel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=kitty-cat-angel).



> Okay. First off, I am so, so sorry, Kim. This fic is for you. Your birthday was back in July and I am only just getting this to you now, but I don't want you to think for a second that you aren't something special to me. Thank you so much for being an amazing friend and super talented and super fun. Special thanks to the marvelous Gwen for being an angel and proofing this for me.

There’s something inside of her that goes painfully still when she folds their photo in half. Something breaks, unravels, plummets all at the same time and far too quickly. She forgets about the single desk lamp illuminating her room, his used and way too big hoodie in a heap by the foot of her bed, and every single note she’s kept with his sloppy writing that she removes from her sight as soon as she closes her drawer.

_Circle yes or no to movie night._

_Wally, this isn’t first grade._

_All I’m asking for is a yes or no!_

It was like she could feel each fresh beat of frustration, fear, and hope in the dips of his ‘V’s and the curves of his ‘C’s. She didn’t have to be close to him to feel the heat crawling all the way up to his ears, hot and pink and stealing freckles.

_Yes._

That was their first year of college. It was sitting next to each other in Chemistry 101, his hand stretching a little too obviously up and over on to her desk to drop various notes on top. It was endless classes of her turning her attention to him as he hunched over to keep his jostled writing away from prying eyes. And she admits that she made the mistake of responding back to him in rushed scrawls, smooth with perfectly looped letters that belonged to every other word except  _stop this right now_ or  _this is dumb_.

In retrospect, she should have known better, but college is for mistakes.

She kept it alive and just as frequent back. Half her notebook that semester shredded save for the few notes she actually does take when she’s mindful of the teacher. Her notes use fewer words, but somehow they were always more than enough.

_You look beautiful today_.

_You’re such a dork._

It was always enough.

He has one ready for most mission debriefings. And in the midst of it forgets exactly how intimidating Batman can be when anything other than a hundred percent attention is paid to him.

It happens other times too. Whenever they sit across from each other during a team dinner at the Cave, his fingers would gracelessly brush against her knee under the table before he would find her hand like he was supposed to, dropping the newest message into her open palm.

“Useless,” she declares suddenly, “ Useless. Useless trash. Doesn’t really mean a thing. Duh, Artemis. DUH!”

One step. Two steps. She’s kicking his hoodie under her bed. And her heart is racing two beats too fast, trying to keep up with a fierce gulp of air that blasts straight into her lungs. She feels sick to her stomach. And she let a dumb boy make her feel that way. That was the worst part.

Her fingers are more aware of what they are holding, what they are keeping folded away from storm-singed eyes. She lowers her gaze, eyes meeting the white backing of a photo they once took together that’s now sandwiched together between her fingers.

Desperate, breathless. Her hands defy her intentions, and somehow she is already grasping at one edge of the photo in an attempt to smooth it open, to repair the bends with sorry fingers. She wants to see his face regardless of how mad she actually is at him. And she wants his voice saying dumb things to her again really soft, really, really there at the hollow of her ear. And if every one of his digits became woven through beaming blonde strands, would she even be mad anymore?

She lets the photo drift away from her, watching it sweep itself underneath Jade’s unused bed. And she doesn’t go after it, much like she couldn’t bring herself to move a single trembling foot forward to chase after her sister (poetic injustice as far as she was concerned). But she was good at standing still. Excellent at buckling, letting her knees catch the ground.

Except she’s older now, wiser. She instead takes a few quiet steps backwards until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed and she freefalls into a thin comforter that she’s had for years, something that only she could relish sinking into.

_No, just stay away for a little while, Wally. I’m just mad. I’m disappointed. I’m a lot of things really short of okay. So just, go. Or actually, I’ll go. That’s a good idea. I’m going. Bye._

Her eyes grow tired of the ceiling, so they fall shut as she rolls her body in the direction of the door. Slowly she curls into herself, knees drawn in with so much concentration that she’s sure she can make herself dissolve into her thin sheets. She swallows hard, and her eyes automatically shut in a complete shudder that shakes her to the tips of her toes. And in that moment, she realizes exactly why she stormed away and why this hurts as much as it does.

_He didn’t even come after me._

It forces her on to her back, and the motion slows the intensity of her feelings. She’s not going to cry. It’s not worth a singl—

Her eyes fly open as soon as she hears a heavy hand strike her door three times in rapid succession. She sits up just as quickly, the inside of her wrist tapping both corners of her eyes just to make sure they were dry. Her legs settle underneath her.

“Mom?” she ekes out, “I’m okay. I, uh, I’ll probably grab dinner later so, uh, just stick it in the fridge for now.”

Nothing. The air is dead, not a single word being carried towards her like she was used to. She bristles on instinct with urgency, hand stretching to reach for the shaft of her concealed arrow.

Her foot falls silent on the cool floorboards, body arching forward off of the bed like the assassin she was meant to be. Quick. Quiet. Back pressed to the wall next to her door before she can hear her voice bubbling up her throat once more for an answer.

“Mom? Did you hear me?” she questions cautiously.

Nothing still. Her grip tightens around the shaft, one hand hovering over her doorknob.  _Breathe. One. Two. Th—_

A sheet of paper slides from underneath her door and she automatically jumps a few feet away from it as if it had exploded, splintered at her harshly. And her heart is hushed despite the sudden  _threat_ that’s arrived just a few feet away from her. White paper. She squints to the point where it’s obvious to her that there’s something written on it.

The arrow loosens in her hand the closer she gets. The words get clearer and the tightness in her jaw dissolves until her lips slightly push apart to suck in a noisy breath.

_I’m sorry._ Written out in capital letters, blue ink slightly smudged where hurried hands passed over freshly pinned down words on paper.

She kneels down, choosing to take the paper into her hand instead of her arrow. With a small push, she’s back up straight and tall on both feet.

“Wally?”

“Yeah.” Even when it’s muffled between the door it does something to her, makes her fingers twitch. She feels ridiculously alive.

“Go home.”

“Wait. What?!” The door rattles against his weight and words. She’s sure she hears the flat of his palm slide against its surface before stopping to take a slow breath.

“I said go home, Wally. I didn’t invite you here. Who even let you in?” And even if he can’t hear it, she’s sure that he can feel the disinterest in her crossed arms, the smooth turn of her neck as she avoids staring at the door.

“Your mom. Speaking of which, what did you tell her? I don’t like getting death glares from any of you Crock ladies for obvious reasons especially in relation to my health.”

“I’m actually done talking to you now. Can you go home?” she insists. “Again, leave. You know, just in case you missed that first part.”

“No, wait. Don’t shut me out like this.” She’s sure that the thud she hears this time is his forehead against the door because he groans extra loudly upon impact. “Artemis?”

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t want to play his game.

“Artemis?” he tries once more. It’s heavy and mars her skin and she’s really never heard him say her name like that before, like it’s burning him alive. “Artemis?” It smolders. It’s all uneven and scared and she grips her elbows a little harder, bites down on her tongue to keep the swell of an answer stuck in her throat.

She doesn’t move. The only thing she can think of doing as the silence grows longer and longer is to drop her head and stare at the lackluster floor. She can’t bring herself to actually open the door, not even when fifteen whole minutes pass and she’s absolutely sure that he won’t be there when she turns the knob.

There are far better things to do than wait on Artemis Crock.

Something flits over towards her feet. She stares at the new piece of paper until her curiosity peaks, and she sways forward to allow the hasty words scribbled on it to become clearer.

_Circle yes or yes if opening the door and giving me a second to talk with you is possible_.

She has to tap her cheeks with her fingers to bring herself back to reality, to keep herself from grabbing a pen from her desk to rebuttal.  Her cheeks are warm and her jaw is clenched bitterly tight and she’s riddled with varying degrees of grief.  The only obvious thing to do is to tell him no and to compel him to take his business elsewhere.

But she’s doing something dumb instead. She’s rushing the door with as little breath as possible, and when the knob is firmly in her grasp she throws back the door with such a force that Wally jumps a step back in surprise with the tiniest squeak and jolt of shock that takes over his shoulders and pulls at his face.

“Hi!” he responds immediately, pulling back his shoulders from their previous slump.

“Hi,” she utters back with more control than he can gather.

“I, um,” he swallows hard, fingers darting to the back of his head where he can tug at short tufts of red, red hair to ground himself, “That is, uh, what happened to the note passing? Is this a yes?”

She mashes her top teeth into her bottom lip briefly before deciding it’s okay to respond without yelling at him for his timing or words or grin or the freckles dusting the top of his nose.

“You only gave me one option, Wally…”

“I did,” he answers proudly.

“And you have thirty seconds to explain yourself before I take you out of this apartment by force. Go.” She crosses her arms just as his eyes go wide with panic.

“Whaaaat?” he drags out with defensive hands raised.

“Not much time left there, Wall-man…”

“Wait hold on!” he drops his hands to his sides, and the deepness of his eyes reaches her with hues true and green, “Okay, look I’m sorry. I came all the way here to tell you I’m sorry. And let me tell you that getting here wasn’t exactly peachy keen considering Gotham’s night time reputation. And yeah, that is not the main point. I’m just awful with dates. I get wrapped up in so many things at once that things slip my mind. It has nothing to do with your level of importance in my life because holy crap you are pretty damn important to me if you aren’t already aware. I just handled the whole thing really dumb. I said the wrong things…and didn’t do the right thing. So, here I am, Artemis. I’m at your door and hoping that maybe you can accept all that.”

He huffs, eyes flying shut on a whim, hands curling into the loudest fists she’s ever seen. His nose crinkles with a sniffle, but he recovers immediately with a swipe of his nose against his sleeve. And he’s back to looking at her like he’s stargazing, like she’s the brightest thing up in the night sky.

She keeps her hands clasped together, preventing any semblance of a tremble in them. “I’m still mad. I can’t stop being mad.”

“And you shouldn’t stop. I’m not begging you to stop at all. But when you do, I want to at least be there, so I can maybe make things right again. I don’t know. I mean, I know I can’t salvage Valentine’s Day.” He breathes evenly, his hands falling over hers protectively, “But I do want to make this work and I want to be with you. That hasn’t changed. Not for a second.”

“Wally…” she mutters at the same time he squeezes her hands.

“You’re awful.”

He chokes up a laugh as he catches grey with green, “Not exactly what I was going for, but I figure that is still infinitely better than getting kicked out.”

Without warning she launches herself into him, arms wrapped securely around his waist. And it takes Wally a second to gather all of his bearings. But he does and his arms pull her in closer, closer. And he smells like clean laundry and Big Red bubble gum when she breathes him in from her spot sunken into his shoulder. And it’s so good to feel this way. It’s good to selfishly want him like this. To need him like this, but to be wanted all the same. And that’s enough.  
  


* * *

 

“I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

“No, correction.  _I’m_  not sleeping on the floor.”

“Um. Now hear me out on this before you say no, but—“

“No. Wally. No. I know exactly what that brain of yours is trying to get at, and no. You are sleeping on the floor.”

“YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I WAS GOING TO ASK!”

“Let’s share the same bed!” she mocks, throwing her voice into his articulation.

The silence that follows is overwhelming, and she smirks when he throws his gaze away from her, one hand sliding to the back of his neck in his feeble attempt to force the heat away from his face and the tips of his ears.  

“Shut up!”

“Ha! I knew it,” she follows triumphantly.

His steps to the door are heavy, and the way he fumbles away angrily to twist at the lock on the door only affirms his agitation. But she chooses to ignore him, slipping out of her boots and unfastening her utility belt. When it lands with a thud on the carpet, he whips his head towards her in a panic.

She can see the alarm creeping up on his face from the corner of his eye, so she stops just as she peels away her cowl so it can bunch itself up at her collar.

“What?” she asks slowly, eyes narrowed.

Wally clears his throat, reaching an arm behind his back to scratch at something idly. “Nothing. Nothing. Just, uh, uh, there’s a bathroom or something there and—“

She turns to him fully, hands on her hips, “Wow, are you kidding me? I’m not getting naked, so you can stop undressing me with your eyes, perv. Ugh, I knew we should have just gotten separate rooms.”

“I am so not a perv! You were just,” he waves a single arm about in exasperation, the heat on his face so red she forgets where his actual hair line begins, “taking things off without warning. I was concerned. And you know that this was the only room they had left. I mean, you can complain all you want, but unless you want to keep wandering around in a city we know little about, I suggest you be grateful of my find. Yeesh.”

She shakes her head in mock disappointment before grabbing at her hair tie to let her hair fall free in heaps down her back. “Well, you can stop being concerned. I’m finished. And I’m getting the bed. Have fun on the floor.”

His face is still inflamed and scorched with embarrassment, but he manages to come back from it with a pointed finger. “That’s not even fair! Do you even have any idea how uncomfortable the floor is?”

“Yeah, princess, I kind of do. That’s why I’m here,” she says while digging up a pillow from underneath tucked sheets. She tosses it in his direction, and watches him bounce it from one hand to the other awkwardly before it settles in his grasp. “You’ll probably need that.”

He doesn’t even turn fully around before he starts mimicking her with exaggerated lips and a few shakes of his head.

“I can still see you!” she reminds him from the seat she takes on the bed.

“That was the point,” he shouts back, pillow dropping to the ground.

He grips the thumb of his right red glove between his teeth and tugs hard before using his free hand to free his other fingers. His boots are next, kicked to the farthest corner of the room. And when he finally settles his butt on the carpeted floor, he reaches up to rip his cowl away from his still warm face.

She can see the lines of summer drawn not so discreetly over his cheekbones and around his eyes. She’s not staring at him. Her eyes divert to her fingers that have wrung together. She’s obviously looking at her comforter. Never at him. Not once. She’s not interested.

Her eyes betray her, following a short trail back to his form that has already made a failed effort to find comfort in the floor, head propped up by a pillow he’s got cradled on the top of his bent arm. And when he yawns she holds her breath, tries to sink into the unfamiliar mattress with gusto or something close to it.

“Good night…” She hears him, nothing of it bitter or heated or upset. It just sounds drawn and honest. And she hates him most for that.

“Yeah, good night…” she finally answers.

That’s it. That’s where it should end, and she should close her eyes and stop staring at the ceiling like it has every single answer that that she needs. But she doesn’t. She keeps staring and then periodically glances over at his form still contently lying on the floor, even breathing and messed-up hair that messes her up too.

“Wally?”

She doesn’t mean to say it like that. She’s actually shocked that his name filters through her mouth so urgently in the first place.

“Wally?” Again, but much clearer, more certain of her actions.

Not a single response. He’s in too deep where ever he is, muscles not even twitching a semblance of recognition to her calls.

She plucks her pillow out from under her, sitting up violently before chucking it at him wildly. “WAKE. UP.”

His arms flail, and she thinks she sees him uppercut into empty air before throwing a punch wildly in front. “Wahhh! WHAT!? WHAT!? I’m up! Are we under attack!? Artemis! Artemis!”

His head whips from side to side, and he must be in full panic mode because when he finally sees her past his own bleary eyes, his shoulders roll back in this heavy kind of relief that she’s not sure what to do with except ignore entirely.

“Don’t wet yourself. We’re not under attack. I just…I changed my mind.”

He lets go of any snide remark he originally has and drops his arms to either side of him. “Huh?”

She avoids him completely, taking more interest in a stray thread she finds in her sheets. “I changed my mind. You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

He looks just as confused by her words as she is, and he looks around just to make sure that she does actually mean him. “Me?”

Artemis pinches the bridge of her nose just as a deep-seated sense of regret washes over her.

“Yes, genius, I’m talking to you. So just get up here before I begin regretting this more than I already am.”

He tucks one of his Kevlar-clad legs under him, and lifts himself up on to his knees before standing awkwardly with one pillow in hand.

“Don’t forget my pillow,” she says throwing a look behind him.

His expression flattens, but he does what he’s told. And far too quickly he’s by the edge of the bed that she leaves empty for him, offering the pillow to her.

“Thanks.”

“Y-yeah,” he stutters, “Actually, I should be saying that to you.”

He makes a motion to pull the covers up, but she stops him with a flat palm. “You sleep on top of the covers. I don’t want any funny business.”

“Really?”

“Really…” she affirms.

She only lifts her hand when he relents, lowering himself onto the bed beside her over the sheets. There’s enough space to keep them physically separated, but she can still feel the weight of him sinking and settling beside her. That’s going to be a problem. She doesn’t like feeling him that close, even if it’s in the weight of the springs in the mattress. 

And that overwhelming lump at the base of her throat becomes way too hard to swallow suddenly.

“See? We can be civil adults if we try hard enough,” he mutters away from her in a delirium of exhaustion that she can hear riddled in his not so perfect delivery.

“Right…” Very, very quiet. “This is fine. You’re fine. I mean, fine in the okay sense. You’re okay.”

It probably doesn’t reach him. His breathing is way too even now for him to have heard her meager reply. The awkwardness spills out of her, and she’s suddenly okay and just sinking and slipping into a similar delirious state after watching him to know him for fifteen minutes too long.

The night drifts by with them both in the same bed until sunlight spills in and strips the wall of its previous halo of darkness. And when her eyes flutter open, feathered against freckled skin, she thinks of not thinking.   

_Oh, no._   
  


* * *

 

She’s not a fan of him leaving. She doesn’t like the phone calls. Most of them end with a solid bye that she always manages to refuse him. Good byes in general are stupid.

“Tell me something funny. Really, really funny, okay?” she breathes into the receiver.

“Like side splittingly funny? Or tee hee that was a good one Wall-man?” She can hear his grin, hear the crinkle forming around his beaming green eyes.

“Will you just stop being so…so…?”

“Me?” The shortness of his laughter peels a slab of worry straight off of her. “Sorry, babe. That’s pretty impossible.”

“Oh, you just wait till you get home. I swear—“

And he eventually always does. He comes back. He comes back to her bare skin and brands her with burning fingers at her back and at the base of her neck.

They never make it to their room, but they never need to.

“So, what were you swearing to me on the phone?” he asks, eyes half lidded as she straddles him in the chair he’s occupying.

She kisses him into silence, long and hard while grasping his face with thin fingers that remember scars and freckles and laugh lines. “A little of that.”

Her hip grinds into his and his eyes roll back into an indescribable state of bliss. “A lot of that. Please a lot of that.”

She drops her head into his shoulder and laughs, so full that it leaves her spine tingling and his skin shuddering.

“I love you,” she says with fingers laced through his and perfect.

And he tells her the same with careful hands and fingers that knead and rove over skin like it’s always the first time. And he kisses it onto the back of her neck when he guides her hips down on top of his. But especially when he says her name, free from his throat, strained and just as desperate for her as he’s always been.    
  


* * *

“Wait, you’re serious. You’re actually here and you were serious? That kiss was a serious thing? And you are here.” She’s not entirely sure what she’s saying, it just comes out in the exact same fog that it enters her mindscape.  

“You’re actually scaring me,” he huffs out, breath warm and spindling about in the cold air in front of him.

They’re on her stoop, and his hands are buried in the pockets of his jacket as far down as they’ll allow. His scarf eventually swallows his lips away from the chilling air or the embarrassment, she can’t be too sure. It’s hard to read him with the lack of color that reaches his cheeks.

“Sorry. It wasn’t like we talked or anything after we…” she clears her throat when she can’t bring herself to say  _kiss_ , “We just went home. I assumed that that was it. Just an adrenaline thing. I felt it. You felt it. Just that one moment, and we’re back to normal. And you’re telling me there’s more to it?”

“It was late and we just saved the world. Excuse me if we didn’t have an in-depth conversation about us sucking face.”

“It was nicer than that. We weren’t sucking face!” she immediately amends.

“Whatever, Artemis. Whatever. I’m sorry I came all the way here. Sorry I dragged you into the cold just to realize that this isn’t a thing. My fault completely.” He can’t look at her, and that makes her sink into a defeated hunch.

One frustrated hand through his blazing red hair, and he’s turned his back to her, feet in a rush down the steps. He’s gone, turned down the corner after an unwarranted goodbye that rings and rings in her ears.

She’s honestly not surprised with the fact that this is the way it turns out, that she stays out longer than a minute to collect herself before turning towards the door to her apartment complex.

Her hand never makes it to the door, halted by frigid fingers and fast words that make her lurch back with surprised eyes.

“Alright. I thought about this for like a minute, but that entire minute was pure agony.”

She whirls around, inches away from his chin and she steps back to get a better grip of the situation.

“Where the hell did you come from!?”

“Around the block,” he answers smugly, “I ran mostly.”

“Not funny.” But then what he just said replays in her head and she realizes that she can’t back up any further, not with the door pressed firmly against her back. “Wait, you were thinking of what?"

“You mostly.” His voice wavers, but he looks sure and proud. “This is probably going to sound dumb or cliché, but I really, really like you. And I want to keep feeling that way, see where it goes. I don’t just kiss people for no reason.”  

She watches his tongue dart out briefly to moisten his chapped lips, and she forgets how to focus or not want. “With me?”

“With you,” he confirms, “Like dates and stuff.”

She snorts at the last bit, and the fact that he doesn’t just bolt his way back down the street shows her that he’s not joking. “Dates and stuff. Wow, I guess this is serious.”

He shrugs his shoulders, and any smile he’s trying to conceal is lighting up his face more than she is expecting. “Yeah, probably.”

She turns to reach for the door, before she has a second to think about what she’s asking.

“Want to come in?”  
  


* * *

  
“I missed you.”

“Babe…I was only gone for a few hours.”

“And I didn’t like that.”

“Just relax. I’m back.”

“For how long?” he asks, nudging her chin up to look him dead in the eyes.

Her Tigress persona is mostly on the floor now. Any bit of her that lingers is only on the surface, and she’s been content with that fact since their last debriefing, the moment when she realizes that she can finally go home and with him.

She’s with him again.

She can be herself.

She can be happy and forget about masks and cracks in her knuckles from breaking glass and wondering if she’d made the right decision. But she doesn’t have to think about that or coming back to an empty home because he’s still here.

“You’re stuck with me. Probably for the long haul too. Sorry to break it to you.”

(She’s not sorry at all.)

He surprises her, lifting her up until her bottom is cradled in his arms, legs wrapped around his torso on instinct. And she never wants to leave this. She wants to have this and most importantly him. She wants him to always be there, to always come back to her when she least expects him to.  He’s so good at that, much better than she gives him credit for.

“I guess I’ll just have to deal with it,” he sighs in mock exasperation.

Her forehead makes contact with his, and her arms wrap around his neck. And she’s good, so good here in this place with him.

“You better,” she starts off slow, getting the lightest of chuckles out of him to skirt her upper lip. “You better.”


End file.
